Loe raamatut: «At Risk: An innocent boy. A sinister secret. Is there no one to save him from danger?»

Chapter 1

Friday

It wasn’t like me to have a headache. Headaches had a very specific place in my life. They came via school holidays, chocolate and/or an excess of grandchildren, none of which currently applied. Still, the thumping going on above my head – Tyler packing upstairs, in his usual Tyler fashion – was accompanied by a definite thumping in my head, so I reached into the medicine cabinet that I kept in the kitchen cupboard and popped two paracetamol from their foil sheet.

‘Feeling sorry for yourself?’ Mike asked as he joined me in the kitchen.

‘No,’ I replied tartly. ‘I just have a headache. Must be the change in the season or something.’

He stopped pouring coffee and gave me a hug. ‘Aww – worried about being all on your lonesome, love? Is that it? But you’ll find something to occupy yourself,’ he pointed out, reasonably. ‘So stop looking so miserable. It’s only just over a week. Besides, Kieron and Lauren will no doubt be around with Dee Dee, so –’

‘I am not feeling sorry for myself,’ I said again, firmly. Though, actually, truth be known, I sort of was.

‘Yes you are. But it’s your own fault. You could have come with us.’

I made a ‘tsk’ sound, somewhat irritably, because that was true as well. Except, really? Me on a school skiing trip? In the cold?

There was no getting away from it, of course. That Mike was right – there had been nothing stopping me. It was the last week of the spring term, Easter just on the horizon, and, as Tyler, our permanent foster child, was going on the trip, it wasn’t as if I had anyone to stay home for. And with my daughter-in-law Lauren, David and their kids already en route to Cornwall as we spoke – for ten days, no less – that was doubly true. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t like snow. I loved snow. Just in the right place and time, that was all. At Christmas, and mostly on the outside.

No, it was the time of year when my thoughts turned to beaches and sunshine, and though Tyler assured me his teacher had promised plenty of the latter, the thought of donning ski gear and hefty snow boots, and generally slipping and sliding around the place, held about as much appeal for me as bungee jumping – i.e. none at all.

I still couldn’t quite believe Mike had been so keen on it. That he’d actually agreed to go along to be a helper. After all, who could he actually help? He’d skied precisely once in his life. When he was seven. Perhaps that was why my head hurt – because of the sheer incredulity of it all.

I swallowed my tablets with the glass of orange juice Mike had thoughtfully poured for me, just as the upstairs thumps and bangs resolved themselves into a resounding thud out in the hall.

‘Don’t worry!’ Tyler shouted down the stairs, getting in before I could berate him. ‘That was just my rucksack! I threw it down so I can carry my other stuff,’ he added helpfully.

I poked my head out into the hall, seeing the rucksack and feeling a little pang of something I didn’t quite like. Tyler had never been away for eight whole days before. And never so far away. ‘Not like you couldn’t have made two trips!’ I shouted back.

‘Well, that’s going to do your head a lot of good,’ Mike observed, grinning.

For all that I was a bit ‘fomo’ – that was the term Tyler had used, wasn’t it? – my ‘fear of missing out’, which had turned out to be more acute than I’d expected, still wasn’t a match for the excitement I felt on Tyler’s behalf. He’d been on about the school ski trip since it had first been mooted the previous summer, and though we’d provided the money for most of it as part of his Christmas present, he had been saving hard and earning extra pocket money for it ever since. He couldn’t have been more excited if he’d tried, bless him. And when one of the parent-helpers had to pull out, having broken their ankle (which felt ironic), he’d been beyond thrilled when Mike said he’d – ahem – ‘step in’ instead.

Whereas I’d been beyond open-mouthed in shock at Mike not so much voluntarily offering to go skiing but going away for a week with a coachload of over-excited teenagers. But apparently it was all go-go-go. He had a week’s leave to use up before Easter, and though the 30-hour coach trip held a measure of concern for him he was looking forward to the trip itself almost as much as Tyler. ‘Like riding a bike, it is, you’ll see’ – he’d said that a dozen times, if not more. Trouble was, I wouldn’t. I’d have to wait for the videos.

I gave myself a mental shake and started making breakfast for them both. Least I could do. Goodness only knew when they’d get their next proper meal. So bacon and eggs as a special treat, I thought. And I decided as I stood and watched the bacon begin sizzling that it was time to pull on my big-girl pants and stop being a baby.

Well, only up to a point. Since I was charged with taking the two of them down to the school gates at the allotted time of ten, there was no way I was going to turn straight around and drive home again.

‘Oh, gawd, you’re not going hang around and show me up, are you?’ Tyler groaned as he added his rucksack to the growing pile by the side of the coach and, while Mike went off to bond with all the accompanying teachers, submitted to a kiss and a hug.

‘You really need me to even answer that?’ I said. ‘Now go on, get on the coach before all the window seats have gone, or you won’t be able to see me running down the road alongside with tears streaming down my face, will you?’

Tyler groaned again and made a face at his friend Denver, who’d just arrived. ‘Honest,’ he told him. ‘My mum is just the most embarrassing parent, ever.’

Tyler had been with us long enough now that it often occurred to me that him calling me ‘mum’ to his friends should feel normal. It didn’t. I still got a lump in my throat every time. And it took a huge effort of will, once the coach was ready to leave, not to do exactly what I’d threatened. As it was, after issuing threats about what I’d do to them if they didn’t phone me every single night, I let them go with just a stoic and queenly wave.

Then headed home, thinking what a weird week it would be. Quiet-weird. Not weird-weird. Well, in theory …

By half past eleven I was back in the zone at home – the radio blaring, the doors wide open and my cleaning materials spread out on the kitchen worktops, my headache spirited away on the breeze. Spring was here, the sun was shining, and I had decided to stop moping and instead make the most of my unexpected free time.

I was two hours in, singing as I wiped down the cooker, when my plans were wiped out at a stroke.

Or, rather at the ringing of my mobile. John Fulshaw. My fostering agency link worker. ‘Hi, Casey,’ he said chattily, ‘can you talk?’

He sounded fine. Which was unusual. Normally, if I wasn’t expecting him, his voice would sound urgent, because, normally, it meant an emergency. ‘I can,’ I said, peeling off a rubber glove with my teeth. ‘What’s up?’